Judge John R. Tunheim signed off on the agreement late Thursday, about five months after giving his blessing to a $24.5 million settlement between the Brazilian meatpacking giant and wholesalers bringing parallel claims in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota. He also awarded $3.9 million in legal fees to counsel for the “commercial and institutional indirect purchasers.”
In approving the deal, Tunheim “considered the complexity, expense, and likely duration of the litigation,” among other factors, he wrote. “The settlement was attained following an extensive investigation of the facts. It resulted from vigorous arm’s-length negotiations, which were undertaken in good faith by counsel with significant experience litigating antitrust class actions.”
The judge previously gave his preliminary approval to a third JBS settlement—a $20 million deal with consumers—which, if it becomes final, would complete the company’s exit from the sprawling case. He has also signed off tentatively on an $83 million agreement between wholesalers and Smithfield Foods Inc.
The consolidated lawsuit—which includes a trio of class actions and individual suits by wholesalers, retailers, and restaurants—is part of a wave of cartel litigation involving livestock and protein, including chicken, beef, turkey, tuna, salmon, and eggs. The poultry and tuna industries have been particularly hard hit so far, with executives from both sectors facing—or serving—prison time.
Like most of the other cases, the pork suit accuses the meatpackers of laundering secret information through farm sector databases published by Agri Stats Inc., which is also named as a defendant. It also claims they coordinated on price by publicly touting the need for herd cutbacks.
Tunheim, who’s also overseeing the beef cartel case, let the pork price-fixing suit move forward in October 2020. He cited “a massively atypical jump in the price of pork” accompanying a sudden decrease in supply “after nearly a decade of sustained growth.”
His opinion Thursday memorializes a Nov. 3 bench ruling, according to the court docket.
Larson King LLP and Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca LLP are lead counsel for the restaurants and retailers. JBS is represented by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP.
The case is In re Pork Antitrust Litig., D. Minn., No. 18-cv-1776, 11/18/21.
